Space for sale, building space by THQ Nordic in preview

Show THQ North It was undoubtedly quintessential and the publisher managed to slip away countless trailers with secret bliss in the 45-minute show. However, of the many games presented, there were only four absolute novelties, and it was inevitable that among these games Alone in the Dark was the one that captured the most attention, given the importance of the brand involved. However, in the group of newcomers, another title caught our attention, thanks to its cartoonish appearance and an interesting basic idea: we are talking about Space for Sale, a kind of strange management of “city-building” where, however, they are not built. Entire city centers, but the goal is to make alien planets habitable for customers from all over the galaxy.

In the reins of the project are Mirage Gym Studios – Developers of Good Little Big Workshop – From what we’ve seen, you can have a little gem full of humour in your hands. This is what they told us Space preview for sale.

Space, the last building frontier

there hypothesis Selling space is a classic: your alter ego has huge debts to pay off with a weird construction company and the only way to pay it off is to throw triple at all the thankless jobs this has to offer. Given that said company operates on a galactic scale, the best way to be beneficial is to make habitable planets usually full of risk, taking a reasonable percentage of the plots sold.

Yes, in other words, Space for Sale is not the “usual” management system, precisely because its premise seems to guarantee constant movements of the hero during the campaign. In fact, your little man armed with a space suit and imagination should not stay long on the various orbs, because once the customers are satisfied, it will be necessary to switch to other ecosystems. This distinguishes the game greatly from city ​​builder Or from a classic management system, due to constantly changing situations, as well as its distance from the previous work of the team, which was based on the constant development of a small factory and on the constant increase in the level of challenge. Ah, the environments will obviously be generated in part procedurally, so each game will be an experience in itself.

The special structure of the game, however, does not mean that there is no underlying complexity. The Mirage determined that it is still sandbox, where resource recovery and land management are essential. In addition, the increased difficulty must be ensured by the absurdity of the requests, given the curious nature already emphasized to the customers. Indeed, if most of the time you have to confine yourself to building only functional houses, in other, more exotic cases you may have to fulfill needs that are no less crazy, such as building ponds filled with lava; We are very curious to see how far the mission objectives will go, and how they will change according to the planet.

Builders, not warriors

The complexity does not seem to stop at the requests: we did not get into a particular mechanical depth during the demo, but it is clear that at the base of the game there is a fairly sophisticated system of building houses, with a lot of possibilities to form the power grid (and perhaps water too, if the logic wants ). That wasn’t enough, facilities require Materials To be placed, this is where the group comes in, which emphasizes exploration a lot.

Every planet has it plants and animals Unique, and since they are plants and exotic creatures, there is no shortage of surprises; So it is not appropriate to approach without thinking about everything in sight: large flowers can easily burst, and the behavior of animals can be unpeaceful.

there the animals It is also central to the gameplay, since the alter ego is not a warrior and cannot actively fight against monsters that prove to be aggressive. Far from simple escaping, it seems possible in the title to render some objects harmless simply by exploiting the surrounding environment. An interesting example is a kind of exotic space lobster with a great love for fruit: as soon as we fed on a sleeping plant, we went to sleep, which allowed us to safely recover minerals from its shell. We believe there will be many similar situations during the campaign.

Other good things? Well, it seems that the simple story of Space for Sale has to do not only with your debts, but also with the strange “space corruption” called, in fact, space rot, which must be met at all costs to make certain areas habitable. In addition, the game also offers a file co-op mode It’s probably pretty hilarious, although at the moment it’s limited to just two players, and the additional options it offers in terms of gameplay haven’t yet been analyzed in detail.